Waldorf Schools and the History of Steiner Education: An International View of 100 Years

By Thomas Stehlik

This book marks the centenary of the first Waldorf School, established by Rudolf Steiner in Stuttgart in 1919. With around 1,150 Waldorf Schools and over 1,800 Waldorf Kindergartens established in over 60 countries, this book examines and analyses how the initial impulse of Steiner education has grown over the last century to become a worldwide alternative movement in education. The author documents and compares the growth and development of Waldorf schools and Steiner-inspired educational institutions around the world, and determines the extent to which the original underpinning philosophy has been maintained against the contexts and challenges of contemporary global trends in education. Within such diverse international contexts, it is significant that the schools retain such a distinctive identity, and clearly redefine how ‘alternative education’ can be viewed. This comprehensive volume will be of interest and value to scholars of Steiner education and Waldorf schools as well as alternative education more widely. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9783030316310

Book preview

© The Author(s) 2019

T. StehlikWaldorf Schools and the History of Steiner EducationPalgrave Studies in Alternative Educationhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31631-0_1

1. The World in 1919: The Context for the Founding of the First Waldorf School

Thomas Stehlik¹  

(1)

School of Education, University of South Australia, Magill, SA, Australia

Thomas Stehlik

Email: [e-mail]

Introduction

Chapter 1 begins the book with an outline of the establishment of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919 in the context of the prevailing post-war social and political climate that led to its foundation. The first ‘Free Waldorf School’ came about through the efforts and vision of two key people—Rudolf Steiner and Emil Molt. The chapter describes the circumstances in which these two men, both from working-class backgrounds but with very different life trajectories—one became a scholar and scientist, the other a capitalist and industrialist—came together through a mutual interest in creating new social forms through the early education of children. This key event is then placed in the context of the times and the developments that were taking place in progressive education on both sides of the Atlantic; for example, the work of John Dewey in the United States and Maria Montessori in Europe (Dewey 1944; Montessori 1912).

In Europe after the Great War, there was a strong impulse for social renewal and re-building a better society after the devastating effects of world war. Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) was already developing practical ideas and theories for human development in a number of disciplines, including the sciences and the humanities (Shepherd 1983; Selg 2018). A brief biography of Steiner in this chapter includes a discussion of his influence on the European social and intellectual milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the lectures, publications and activities which led to his considered views on ‘the problem of education’ and the establishment—in only three months—of the first school to be completely organised according to his methods.

The origins of this first school tell an interesting story. Steiner was approached by Emil Molt, who owned the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, to establish a school for the children of his workers. Molt was a philanthropist as well as a businessman, and after his attempts to provide free adult education classes for his workers failed due to their lack of interest, he realised that education had to begin with the very young (Murphy 1991). The ‘Free Waldorf School’ opened on September 7 1919, with an enrolment of 256 children and an entirely new curriculum based on Steiner’s theories of child development and his firm notion that the school should be free of state control, free of dogma and open to children of any class or background. This set the template for all the schools that have since been established in the ensuing 100 years.

Rudolf Steiner—‘A Western Sage’

There is a wealth of extant literature on the life and work of Rudolf Steiner, and the reader who is interested in more detail about his upbringing and education and the way in which he developed his unique set of philosophical approaches to scientific, spiritual and societal matters is directed to these biographies and commentaries (eg Dahlin 2017; Selg 2018; Shepherd 1983), as well as Steiner’s own autobiographical writings (eg Steiner 1928, 1951, 1985). However, there are many biographical works in other languages that have not necessarily been translated into English; for example German (Lindenberg 1997) and Norwegian (Skagen 2015). This chapter begins with a brief biography of Steiner in order to set the scene for a discussion of the founding of the Anthroposophical Society and the first Waldorf School. The reference to Steiner as a ‘Western Sage’ comes directly from the work of Swedish academic Bo Dahlin, who suggests that Sages have access to spiritual wisdom that goes beyond science and ordinary experience and while still being recognised in the East, have largely disappeared from public life in the West since the Renaissance and the increasing dominance of a scientific worldview; and he goes on to assert that Steiner possessed spiritual insight and wisdom as well as extensive knowledge of science and technology, and could be considered as a sage of our time (Dahlin 2017: 15).

Rudolf Steiner was born in February 1861 and grew up in that part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which is now Lower Austria, to a German-speaking middle-class family. His father was a station master, and living at a railway station Steiner writes in his memoir how he developed an early fascination with technology, mechanics and mathematics, and an intense curiosity into the way in which things worked in both the natural and man-made worlds. In childhood he showed an astounding precocity, teaching himself geometry at the age of eight and absorbing the fundamentals of philosophy, trigonometry, analytical geometry, calculus, and geography by the age of fifteen, then learning Latin and Greek by his early twenties. This ability for self-directed learning would be a distinguishing feature throughout his entire life. Formal education consisted of the Realschule and the Vienna Technische Hochschule where Steiner took a degree in physics, chemistry and mathematics while simultaneously attending lectures in literature and philosophy at the University of Vienna, eventually completing a thesis on epistemology and achieving the status of Doctor of Philosophy in 1891.

In addition to this polymathic interest in scientific and philosophical knowledge, Steiner also claimed to be clairvoyant from early childhood, and writes in his memoir of a number of personal spiritual experiences that confirmed for him two conceptions which were naturally undefined, but which played a great role in my mental life even before my eighth year. I distinguished things as those ‘which are seen’ and those ‘which are not seen’ (Steiner 1928, Chapter 1). His various biographers cover these experiences and the way he dealt with them in some detail; but all note that Steiner spent many years undertaking what he believed to be rigorous scientific research into this ‘supersensible’ realm before feeling confident in being able to reveal and share his findings in writings, lectures and publications.

By his early twenties Steiner had begun to develop his own philosophy which eventually came to be known as Spiritual Science (Geisteswissenschaft), based on a thorough empirical understanding and experience of both the scientific and the spiritual worlds. These theories were strongly influenced by the scientific writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which Steiner had been appointed to edit for Kurschner’s edition of German National Literature at Weimar in 1883. The influence of Goethe as ‘the last true Renaissance man’ on Steiner’s eventual world-view was profound. From Goethe, Steiner inherited the ideal of precision and devotion to detail in experimentation; the significance of the relationship between object and subject and the relationship to the whole; a spiritual-scientific approach to the world of sense; the use of metaphor and symbol to explore psychological and social dynamics; and the determination to resist imposing thought-systems upon Nature (Baigent and Leigh 1997: 260; Childs 1991: 11; Shepherd 1983: 53; Koepf and Jolly 1978: 25).

Weimar has proven to be a significantly important place for the development of many streams of thought in western consciousness; for example the Weimar Republic, German Romanticism and Idealism, and the Bauhaus Art movement. It was also Goethe’s hometown, and his house is still there as a living museum. Steiner moved there in 1890 and spent several years immersed in the newly established archives devoted to the work of Goethe and his contemporary, the poet and playwright Friedrich von Schiller. These were obviously very formative years during which the landmark text The Philosophy of Freedom (1894) was published, and in his autobiographical reflections Steiner writes (in the third person) of his time there:

Many visitors came—scientists from Germany and abroad, even from America—so that the Goethe-Schiller archives became a gathering place for the most varied scholarship …. At the same time he had a unique opportunity to immerse himself in old recollections connected with the time of Goethe and Schiller. Because Weimar was really the centre for many artistic interests … it was possible to grow together with many artistic interests. (Steiner 1985: 40)

In 1898 Steiner moved to Berlin, where he became editor of a literary magazine and began his career as an adult educator at the Berlin Workers Educational Institute. Apparently Steiner was very popular with the working class adult men and women, but his lectures on religious, artistic and moral motives for living were in contrast to the prevailing Marxist outlook of the Institute, whose leaders eventually asked him to leave. However, his fame as an inspiring public speaker was now spreading, and after being invited to be guest speaker for 7000 members of the German Printers Union at the Gutenberg 500th Anniversary Festival, Steiner went on to conduct literally thousands of public and private lectures on a diverse range of topics all over Europe for the next twenty-five years. Many of these lectures were recorded, transcribed and published, and are still in print (Rudolf Steiner Press 2015).

The intellectual climate in Europe at the turn of the century seemed to be heavily influenced by esoteric thought and metaphysical ideas—an emerging stream of consciousness which attracted many people who were looking for more than established religious dogma and rationalist materialistic values could offer. A contemporary of Steiner’s was HP Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, which Steiner was associated with for a time as leader of the German Section, under which aegis he conducted many lectures on a variety of subjects related to the spiritual background of life. However Steiner’s views increasingly diverged from the official outlook of Theosophy due to the increasing knowledge gained from his own direct spiritual experiences, and:

… partly because it was more concerned with the study of the ancient mystic teaching of the East, than with realising in man today the faculties of direct supersensible knowledge which the present stage in the evolution of humanity demanded and had made possible. (Shepherd 1983: 65)

This led in 1913 to the formation of the Anthroposophical Society, which Steiner saw as a manifestation of a Western stream of esoteric consciousness that was more relevant to twentieth century Europe and represented an essentially Christian impulse as opposed to the Eastern mysticism of Theosophy. Of the term Anthroposophy , various definitions have been given, but according to Shepherd:

… perhaps no one definition would contain its whole meaning. The word ‘sophia’ always denotes the divine wisdom, and ‘Anthroposophy’ indicates that this wisdom is to be found in the knowledge of the true being of man and of his relation to the universe. (1983: 73)

The essence therefore of this world-view is that a study of the evolution of humanity through various stages of civilisation and consciousness will reveal the true direction for the development of society and the individual person. Two criticisms of this world-view need to be highlighted however. One is that this represents an exclusively white, European—some would say Germanic—orientation and is not inclusive of all cultural and historical contexts; and the other is the gendered use of the term ‘man’ in nearly all of the Anthroposophical literature. Both are acknowledged as problematic and are issues that usually surface in any discussion of Anthroposophy. The latter issue, though, can be partly attributed to the loss of meaning in translation from the word mensch, which in the German language really refers to humanity as a whole, and the gender exclusive effect of the English word man, not only in this context but in many others (Collins German Dictionary).

The re-uniting of science and spirit in a new spiritual science became the leitmotif or design theme of his life’s work. For Steiner this meant applying the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy and scientific method to spiritual questions, in a way that was distinctly different from traditional mystical approaches. (Haralambous 2018: 9)

In 1913 Steiner went on to establish a centre for the study of music, drama, art and sciences in Dornach near Basel in Switzerland, where he planned the construction of the Goetheanum, a wooden building designed in accordance with his unique indications on architecture, form and space, as illustrated in the example of his own house (Fig. 1.1). The Goetheanum was conceived essentially as a centre for adult education and is still the ‘spiritual headquarters’ of the Anthroposophical Society. While continuing to provide travelling lecture courses, Steiner began to advocate what he called the Three-fold Social Order, in part responding to post-war needs for social reconstruction and as one of the practical manifestations of Anthroposophy, which also found realisation in major new movements in education, the arts, medicine and agriculture, which are briefly outlined below. However, this activity and its focus on the three ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity earned Steiner many enemies, and in 1922 the Goetheanum was destroyed in an arson attack.

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Fig. 1.1

Steiner’s house, Dornach. (Photograph taken by Dr. John Paull)

Steiner’s response was to immediately begin work on a second Goetheanum built of reinforced concrete; however, he died in 1925 before it was finished. His death is shrouded in some mystery and, although unsubstantiated, has been attributed to the dark forces that were massed against him and his radical ideas, as by this time he had attracted a large and influential following in Western Europe. Steiner is still regarded with suspicion and hostility by detractors of his work, and has been labelled variously as a pretentious mystagogue (O’Connor 1963: 26), and the initiator of a dangerous and mysterious cult (Dugan and Daar 1994). Even in his lifetime, Steiner warned against the danger in taking his ideas literally and treating them as dogma, and also strove not to present Anthroposophy as a religion or sect, especially in relation to its educational philosophy:

If people spread such things in a sectarian manner, as if it were a kind of religious creed, very little good will result for the culture of mankind and for life as it exists today. Such knowledge will be of value only if one can look upon it as indicating a new direction in order to enrich life, rather than accepting the existing abstract concepts of man and of the developing child. (Steiner 1981: 16–17)

Yet one hundred years later these issues are still being debated not only within Steiner communities but within sections of society that presuppose spirituality to equate with religious creed; in particular with those who argue that Waldorf Schools are ‘religious schools’—a label which in some countries makes a big difference to state funding but which also influences the way in which the schools are generally perceived. These issues will be taken up and discussed in more detail in Chap. 5.

Steiner’s biographer AP Shepherd actually stresses the point that many people’s knowledge of Anthroposophy is entirely limited to its [practical] expressions in such [applied] activities, educational, therapeutic or agricultural, and that the central spiritual principles underlying such activities are often not well understood, leading to misinformation, misunderstanding, and even ignorance and hostility towards the world of Spiritual Science (1983: 174).

Even within school communities some parents are adamant that Waldorf Schools are Christian schools, while others would argue that they are, according to published information brochures, ‘non-sectarian and non-denominational’ (Madison Waldorf School 2019). The fact that Waldorf Schools exist in Islamic, Hindu and Jewish cultural settings for example, and that in Germany all denominations are invited to give religious instruction in Waldorf Schools would seem to negate the former. However, there is no doubt that Steiner’s representation of the development of western civilisation is based on a Christocentric world view; and the fact that the schools can still function quite happily despite the seemingly fundamental opposition of views even amongst the parent body suggests a philosophy that is capable of being inclusive of all creeds and allows space for a complete range of personal beliefs—what has been described as a sort of global Christianity that is beyond denominationalism (Kaltenbach, cited in Stehlik 1996: 103).

Again, the reader is directed to the primary sources (Steiner’s writings and lectures) for a deeper understanding of these spiritual principles, which for the purposes of this book are taken as an established body of theoretical and philosophical thought that has given rise to real-world applications with demonstrated practical benefit to humanity.

Such practical activities include not only the Waldorf Schools, but the Camphill Communities which provide curative education and a creative, caring living environment for people with special needs; Anthroposophical medicine which takes a holistic approach to well-being and sees each human being as a unique individual with a spiritual as well as a physical and mental constitution; Biodynamic agriculture, a holistic view of farming and gardening that makes use of the rhythm of the seasons as well as natural preparations to enhance the life activities of the soils, plants and animals; Art therapy and the use of colour and form in the visual arts as a healing quality; Eurythmy, an art of movement which seeks to make speech and music visible in form, gesture and colour; and a more humanistic and organic approach to architecture that unifies the form, feeling and colour of living, working and performing spaces.

Elements of all these practical applications of the Anthroposophical impulse intersect with the life of a Waldorf School, either as aspects of the curriculum, the physical environment of the school, or as part of the extended domain of the school community in the work, interests and development activities of individuals. While these aspects of Steiner’s legacy are mentioned here partly to indicate the breadth and range of endeavour that has been inspired by a single movement, it is also important to recognise the interconnected nature of these disciplines and the way they mutually support each other (Childs 1991: 23). Furthermore, involvement in one area seems to introduce individuals to the possibility of the others, as was the case for my family as mentioned in the preface.

The Origins of the First Waldorf School: A Threefold Society

In 1919 Rudolf Steiner published The Threefold Social Order, a book which outlined an approach to political and social renewal that was intended as a contribution to the rebuilding of a society devastated by the turmoil of the First World War and hijacked by increasing materialist and scientific rationalist thinking. According to the anthroposophical view that the historical development of human consciousness could inform contemporary western civilisation, twentieth century society has inherited its cultural/spiritual life from the Ancient Greeks, its state or legal structure from the Romans, and an economic structure that is European in origin. Steiner believed that in modern times these three elements are chaotically mingled, and that social order could only be brought about by developing a Threefold Commonwealth that would:

… regard the state as a trinity rather than as a unity: one autonomous sub-state should concern itself exclusively with the cultural life (spiritual structure); another should concern itself exclusively with Man’s life of rights (legal structure), and a third with the production and management of goods and services (economic structure). (Childs 1991: 4)

The book and the lectures which Steiner gave on this theme (published as The Social Future 1972b) created a great impression in Europe; perhaps because people were inspired by the way the three elements of the social organism were linked to the great universal ideals of liberty (cultural, intellectual and religious freedom), equality (political freedom and legal rights), and fraternity (the right to work creatively). Furthermore, the structure of this new approach was based on the threefold nature of the human being represented by thinking, feeling and willing, which in Steiner Education manifests in the well-known image of the developing child as a trinity of head, heart and hands. An understanding of the form of the human organism could be reflected in an understanding of the form of the social organism.

Briefly, the head, representing the nerve-sense system is the seat of thinking which is potentially the freest activity an individual can engage in (ie liberty), and therefore is the centre of creativity in the cultural sphere of society, as manifested in religion, art, music, science and education. The heart, representing the trunk and rhythmic system is associated with breathing and circulation and the sharing of oxygen, a rhythmic process of exchange. All humans are interrelated through breathing and sharing the same air, creating the need to negotiate equal space in the rights or legal/political sphere (ie equality). Finally, the hands represent the metabolic or limb system which in the human body relates to the digestive processes. Efficient management of the economic cycles of production, consumption and waste for example requires co-operation and community (ie fraternity) (Mazzone 1996; Shepherd 1983; Steiner 1972a).

Using this analogy of the body, where all organs must serve the whole body in order for it to function effectively, Steiner tried to show that ideologies such as Marx’s dialectical materialism only applied to the economic sphere—that in communist ideology there was fraternity but no liberty of thought. Similarly capitalist ideology was concerned with freedom in the economic sphere but not in the cultural sphere, with a consequent dulling of the intellectual and spiritual fabric of society. Education had also been hijacked by the economy and the state in western capitalist society—schools were concerned with outcomes rather than inputs and were becoming institutions for social engineering in the interests of the means of production rather than society in general. Steiner believed that the creation of new social forms could only be made possible by keeping the activities of each sphere separate and autonomous. For example, labour should be detached from the economic process and be regulated not by wages but by the notion of equality and legal rights; education should be independent of any political or economic authority and the education process, not the labour process, should control teachers.

Steiner further considered that there was a separation between labour and capital, and that workers and bosses could only be brought together through the principle of association [which] is a demand of social life (1972b: 40). In referring to the idea of association in 1919, Steiner was not alone in his thinking. In that same year, the landmark 1919 Report on Adult Education in the United Kingdom acknowledged the value of association in informal education and social movements; in France there was already a long tradition of recognising the importance of association on the educative life of the individual and the community, known as la vie associative; and in the previous year the American writer Mary Parker Follett had published The New State in which she suggested that in group activities ‘the centre of consciousness is transferred from our private life to our associate life’ (1918: 368, cited in Smith 2002). This emerging trans-Atlantic social climate attracted individuals from all sections of German society, including both workers and bosses, to Steiner’s lectures and meetings. One such person who was already a follower of Steiner and a member of the Anthroposophical Society was the industrialist Emil Molt, director of the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart.

Workplace Learning Leads to a New Form of Schooling

A biography of Emil Molt written by his grand-daughter (Murphy 1991) provides a fascinating account not only of the personality of Rudolf Steiner as seen through the words of Molt, but of the real reasons behind the founding of the first Waldorf School which could not have come into being without Molt’s philanthropic generosity. Among other things, we read how Molt purchased the brand name of Waldorf Astoria from the tobacconist shop in the famous New York Hotel founded by the even more philanthropic Astor family. However Molt’s form of altruism was more focused and fired by a specific ideology rather than a general desire to ‘spread money around’, as Lady Astor would have put it (Stewart 1998). Inspired by Steiner and the frequent discussions and meetings with other like-minded social reformers, he enthusiastically sought to implement the ideals of the Threefold Social Order within the community of his large factory, beginning with a desire to liberate the workers’ minds by offering them free liberal adult education classes. In Molt’s words:

Amid these activities, another branch of the Threefold Movement blossomed: the Waldorf School movement. I expressly say ‘movement’ because, with the founding of the first Waldorf School, a model was created for many. Before I give an account of this, however, I should like to say something about the attempts at adult education made within the Waldorf Astoria factory, since these were the forerunners of the school. (Murphy 1991: 136)

These attempts at adult education took the form of a series of afternoon lessons in foreign languages, painting, history and geography as an introduction to the broader questions of life and learning, generously counted as paid work time. Molt was trying to put into practice the recognition of the cultural sphere in economic life, not just